


Overdose

by kirargent



Series: Femslash Friday Ficlets [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Asexual Character, Case Fic, F/F, Love Confessions, Undercover as a Couple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 05:06:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2297603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kirargent/pseuds/kirargent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jo takes another glance around the club—and yep, sure enough: it wasn't the ghost that had Dean Winchester quaking in his boots—it was the ghost's choice of hunting ground: a gay bar. Jo barely stops herself from laughing out loud. Oh, god, the fun she's gonna have teasing Dean about this.</p><p>Then a hand falls on Jo's shoulder, and the laugh shrivels up and dies in her throat. Because right, yeah, now the line about needing "backup of the female type" makes perfect sense, and there's an angel of the goddamn lord smiling at her and saying "I got your text," and making Jo's heart start up a furious jig by being generally perfect. Fuck. It's one thing to ignore a little crush when you're balls deep in monster guts—totally another story in a club where girls are kissing other girls on all freakin' sides.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Overdose

**Author's Note:**

> warnings for drug use/overdose, alcohol, the violence associated with a Supernatural monster-of-the-week case, and (maybe) panic attacks

"What mess do I have to pull you out of this time?"

Jo can hear Dean sigh on the other end of the line. "Come on," he says, "couldn't I be calling just to say hello?"

Jo raises an eyebrow. "Are you?"

Another sigh. A defeated: "No."

"That's what I thought," Jo says. There's no reason for her to keep the smugness from her voice, so she doesn't bother. It does Dean Winchester some good to be humbled every once in a while, if you ask Jo. "So?" she prompts. "What are we lookin' at?"

Back to business now, Dean speaks with more of his usual casual authority. "Got a ghost that looks like it's latched onto a building up here in Oregon. Need some backup. Are you far?"

"Nah. I can be there by tomorrow." She pauses, smiles. "You really need my help taking care of a little haunting? You're losing your touch, old man."

"Just get up here," Dean grumbles. "And bring your angel girlfriend with you. We could use some support from the God Squad." He hangs up before Jo can tell him for the thousandth time that she and Anna aren't together like that.

—

It's been three months since Jo has seen Dean face to face, and he looks about the same as ever. Well, he's without the alarming facial expression he had last time he saw her, the fish-mouthed gape like his lungs had just given out. Really, she can't blame him for that. Funny as it was, it was an understandable reaction to seeing someone who'd been dead for five years suddenly standing on your doorstep.

And man, what a doorstep. The Winchesters' new batcave is nicer by miles than the old Roadhouse ever was. Jo missed out on a lot during her stint being dead.

Dean had invited her inside (after the standard "is it really you?" tests), sat her down on the couch, and demanded an explanation. Jo had given the best one she could come up with, which, admittedly, wasn't very good. "I don't know," basically sums it up.

They got more answers when the familiar face of another dead ally showed up on the doorstep. "What, you think God would give Castiel reincarnation over and over again, and just forget about his first daughter to Fall for humanity? Please." And that was that. With a flash of red hair, Anna Milton was back in their lives, de-winged like the rest of the angels, but still perfectly capable of bringing Jo back to life and icing a few mooks when the need arose.

Metatron is still holed up in Heaven like a teenager who's discovered the lock on his bedroom door, but the Winchesters say they're workin' on that. To be honest, Jo doesn't really mind taking a backseat during Big Crisis: Pissy Angel Edition. Leave her to her knives and her small-time hunts and her technique-sharing with Tracy Bell, a badass lady hunter after Jo's own heart.

But yeah, inevitably, the Winchesters will call her for help every once in a while.

"All right," Jo says, stepping out of her car. "What's the catch? No way you guys chicken out on a plain old haunting."

Dean shifts his weight where he's leaning against his muscle car. Sam gives her a smile that edges on embarrassed.

"Well it's, uh," Dean says.  "See, the ghost, um. It, uh..." He shakes his head. "We just need help on this one, okay? Here's the address." He holds out a scrap of motel paper; Jo steps forward to take it. An address is written in Dean's barely-decipherable lettering. "Where's Anna?"

"Meeting me when she gets here. Why?"

"You're gonna need backup," Dean says vaguely. "You know, of the, uh. Female type." 

Sam snorts.

Jo hesitates a moment, her expression somewhere between " _the hell do you mean?_ " and " _god, why do I put up with you?_ "

"All right," she says finally, shaking her head. "I got no idea what's makin' you boys act so weird, but you can leave this one to me. I'll go scout the place out before Anna gets here. We'll give you a call when everything's wrapped up."

"Great." Relief colors Dean's smile. "Thanks, Jo."

She waves a hand. "Yeah, whatever. My week wouldn't be complete without saving your asses at least once."

Dean flips her off. Jo sticks out her tongue as the boys get back in their car and tear out of the empty lot in a swirl of dust.

—

The place doesn't look particularly terrifying from out front. Some kind of a club, it looks like. Kinda beat up, kinda dirty—it looks a little sketchy in the evening shadows, but it doesn't exactly strike horror into Jo's heart, or anything.

"What are you boys so scared of?" Jo says under her breath as she crosses the street.

There's a guy standing guard at the door, but he lets her through with a wave of her ID. Not her real one, of course. Nope, tonight she's Marilyn Hooks, a sweet girl from way down South who's up visiting her sick aunt.

She steps inside, crossing her arms over her chest. She gives the room an efficient scan. It looks like a dance club, on the small side, with a long bar along the right side of the room. No one else is dressed as casually as Jo's tank top and jeans, but the place seems rather subdued, not too fancy overall. Good. It'll be easy to get the people in here to talk.

A little smile finds Jo's mouth; her blood runs warm with the excitement of a good hunt. It's always been like this: always the thrill, always the adrenaline. She's loved hunting since Dad sat her on his knee when she was little and told her heart-racing stories of dark, gritty alleyways and fierce, gruesome monsters. She didn't know it was real, then, but she does now, and she still loves it. Loves saving people, loves ridding the world of evil, loves feeling strong and important even if she's an outcast. Hunting is her place in the world.

The knife holster strapped to her ankle is a tight, familiar presence as she sets out for the bar, eyeing up the customers getting drinks as she goes. She'll hit on the dude with the tight black pants, she thinks, get him to tell her all the horror stories he knows about this place. She reaches the bar, and slides onto a stool beside her prey—but doesn't even get a chance to say "Hello" before another guy slides up, wraps his arms behind Jo's target from behind, and places a less-than chaste kiss under his ear.

Oh.  _Oh_.

Jo takes another glance around the club—and yep, sure enough: it wasn't the ghost that had Dean Winchester quaking in his boots—it was the ghost's choice of hunting ground: a gay bar. Jo barely stops herself from laughing out loud. Oh, god, the fun she's gonna have teasing Dean about this.

Then a hand falls on Jo's shoulder, and the laugh shrivels up and dies in her throat. Because right, yeah, now the line about needing "backup of the female type" makes perfect sense, and there's an angel of the goddamn lord smiling at her and saying "I got your text," and making Jo's heart start up a furious jig by being generally perfect. Fuck. It's one thing to ignore a little crush when you're balls deep in monster guts—totally another story in a club where girls are kissing other girls on all freakin' sides.

"Oh, great," Jo says, although the circumstances are fast fading from anything that might resemble "great."

"Found anything good yet?" Anna asks. The hand doesn't leave Jo's shoulder. Anna smiles at the bartender, communicates something that Jo doesn't hear—she's too preoccupied with Anna's closeness. 

"Um," Jo says. "No. Just got here myself."

Anna is good undercover. She gives Jo a smile that's the perfect blend of secrecy and excitement and lovey-dovey crap, and Jo feels like her ribcage is suddenly four times tighter. "That's okay," she says. Jo forces herself to focus on Anna's words and not her smile, because they're on a case, damn it, and because there's no way Anna would be into her like that, anyway. There's no chance the angel who fell from Heaven for sex and chocolate cake would wanna tether herself to someone who finds sex even less bearable than digging up graves in the middle of the night and setting fire to someone's rotting bones. "Where do you wanna start?" Anna asks, and Jo snaps herself out of it.

"Let's mingle," she says, finding a smile. "I bet we'll hear some stories."

—

They do hear stories. Lots of stories. Jo hasn't had as much practice flirting with women as she has with men, but it comes back to her easily. With a drink in her hand and a partner in crime somewhere across the club, this is even kinda fun. She's on a hunt. Business as usual. Bat your eyelashes, gather information, keep an eye open for anything suspicious. They'll hit the library for obituaries later, and then it'll be off to the graveyard. Easy-peasy. Jo smiles, winks at the girl who's just told her another variation of their ghost's legend, and slips away back to the bar.

A wave of magenta-red catches her eye; she adjusts her course in Anna's direction. As she draws closer, she sees that Anna's in conversation with a man standing next to her at the bar.

"Why're you so interested in ghost stories, lady?" is the first thing she hears once she's within earshot. His dark eyebrows are raised, his eyes narrowed. Anna looks on-edge.

Jo places herself at Anna's side, sliding an arm around her waist. "Hey, sweetie," she says. The pet name feels weird in her mouth, when used without sarcasm. Maybe not entirely bad, but definitely weird. "What are you talking about?"

"Your friend here is real nosy, that's what we're talking about," the guy supplies.

Jo fakes a laugh, holding Anna tighter to her side. "Oh, don't you worry about this one." She lays the accent on thick, just for the hell of it. "She gets intense sometimes, that's all." The guy still looks suspicious. "She's a fantasy writer," Jo explains, "so she's always looking for new inspiration." That does the trick. The guy's face clears.

"Oh," he says, interested now, "really? That's cool. I've got a buddy who's a writer."

Jo can feel the force of the thousand-watt smile Anna's giving her without looking. Her stomach feels warm; her ribcage squeezes her heart again.

"Would you mind indulging her?" Jo asks the guy. "She  _insisted_  we come here, said there was some fascinating story she just had to hear. Come on, we'll buy you a drink."

"Yeah, why not," the guy says. "I guess it is kind of an interesting story." He sits on a barstool. Anna takes the one next to him. There aren't any more seats open, so Jo keeps standing, staying just close enough to hear, just close enough to Anna to feel the warmth of her.

The guy orders a beer; Jo forks over some cash.

He leans forward on his stool, pointing behind the bar. "You see that stain?" Anna cranes her neck to look; in an example of the casual physical intimacy appropriate for their cover, Jo presses herself against Anna's back to peer over her shoulder. Anna's back is warm. Jo could enjoy lying in bed like this.

Anna's voice reminds her of the current circumstance. "You mean the red wine?" she asks. Sure enough, Jo spots a patch of discolored carpet behind the bar, a burgundy-brown that's a little darker than the blue-gray of the rest of it.

"Yeah, that's not wine."

Jo raises a skeptical eyebrow. Ever the actress, Anna leans in, eyes wide. "No?" she breathes. "What is it?"

The guy smiles, takes a lazy drink of his beer. His eyes gleam with the joy of the story as he leans in too, mirroring Anna. "Well, what do you think? It's blood, of course."

"Really?" Anna's depthless fascination seems to boost his confidence. 

"Yep." He takes another drink, leans on the bar. "This club used to be a church, you know. A little hole-in-the-wall community thing." He chuckles. "Hilarious, right? I'd love to see the look on one of those old pastors' faces if they could see this place now."

Anna's curious, intelligent eyes watch the man's face with an intentness that Jo envies.

"Anyway," he continues, setting his beer down on the bar, "story goes that the last pastor they ever had was involved in some real shady stuff—drugs, the way I heard it—and the whole place got shut down. The property changed hands, and now we've got this place." He pauses for another drink.

Anna watches on with rapt attention. "What about the blood?" she prompts.

The guy grins. "Well, before this club started up, the building stayed empty for a while. People broke in all the time. Homeless people, kids with stolen alcohol, druggies, you name it." He leans in again. "Now, the way most people'll tell you the story, the pastor came back one night, found all those lowlifes in his church, and went nuts. They say he stabbed a thirteen year old kid to death, right over there. They could never get all the blood out of the carpet."

Anna inhales theatrically.

Jo narrows her eyes. "'The way most people tell it'? Does that mean there's another version?" Every variation of the story she's heard so far has been a pastor or a priest stabbing a child. If there's a different ending, they need to hear it.

"I thought your friend was the one who was into ghost stories."

Jo presses her lips together. "Indulge me."

"We'll buy you another drink," Anna promises. "Please?"

"Yeah, all right. Well, I've got a friend who works here, and the way  _she_  heard it, it was another kid who killed that boy. They were high, confused—kid grabbed a needle and used it to cut open his friend's jugular."

"Oh my god," Anna says. She grips the edges of her stool tightly. "Really? That's horrible!"

The guy shrugs. "Dunno if it's true or not—but if not, how do you explain that blood in the carpet? Anyway, that's all I got. Good luck with your story!" He grabs his second beer, nods at them, and heads off to the dance floor.

Jo steals his seat at the bar. She sits sideways, facing Anna. Their knees bump together.

"You think that's really blood?" she asks, voice low.

In response, Anna closes her eyes. She holds herself unnaturally still.

After a few seconds, she opens her eyes again, frowning. "It's not blood," she says decisively. "Just wine."

Jo grits her teeth. "All the stories I heard had a teenager stabbed to death. You hear anything different?" At a shake of Anna's head, Jo growls, " _Damn_  it. If that's not blood, where do we start?"

"Library?" Anna suggests.

Jo nods. The air in here is growing thicker and warmer as it gets later and more people stream through the doors, and Jo's beginning to feel flushed from the drinks she's had. It'll be good to get out of here, clear her head. "Sounds good," she says. "Let's roll."

—

The library is as typical a library as Jo's ever been in: tall wooden bookshelves presiding over everything; carpeted floors that give everything an unseasonal wintery hush; long, unadorned tables for reading. It's quiet, the lighting low—it's peaceful.

With a furious huff, Jo shoves a stack of papers away from herself across the table. Beside her, Anna looks up.

"I got nothing about anyone being stabbed going seventy-five years back. You find anything?"

Anna shakes her head. Her wide, dark eyes look tired.

Jo sighs. "Remind me how Casper's been killing people?"

Anna sifts through her own stack of papers. "We've got a mix of heat stroke and heart failure, all without any identifiable cause. The coroner said they all probably overdosed on ecstasy—but there were no signs of any drugs in their systems."

"Huh." Jo taps her fingers against the table; they make a dull tapping sound in the muted quiet of the library. "Well, that doesn't really sound like a ghost who was brutally stabbed to death, does it? So maybe it's something else."

Anna narrows her eyes. "You think he overdosed?"

Jo shrugs. "The wine stain explains where the stabbing thing came from. Somebody thought it made for a more interesting story if the kid got stabbed, they embellished a little... Looks like that place really did used to be a church—if I was telling the story, I'd make it a murder, get a creepy priest involved. It could fit."

"Why kill all those people though? They weren't doing drugs in the first place; what made them targets?"

Jo shrugs again. "Ghosts go vengeful, dude. That's kinda their thing. Does it have to make sense?"

Anna seems to consider. "I guess not," she decides, not sounding entirely convinced.

"Cool," Jo says. "Change of tactics. Let's start lookin' for a teenage boy who overdosed in that building."

—

"Who are we looking for again?" Jo whispers. The beam of her flashlight dances erratically over the headstones as she moves. Anna, walking next to her, has freaky angel vision and doesn't need the flashlight to see. It's unfair, is what it is.

"Arthur Moore," Anna tells her.

"Right," Jo says, "okay." 

They continue picking their way over uneven ground and between gravestones, checking each name as they pass. The light from the flashlight bounces with Jo's steps. The shovel is heavy over her shoulder.

Arthur's grave is deep within the cemetery, so far that they lose sight of the road. "Here," Anna whispers. Jo stops. When her flashlight beam catches the headstone, the name " _ARTHUR MOORE_ " is only barely eroded away, and still easy to read.

"All righty then!" Jo says brightly. "Dig time."

Anna places a hand on her shoulder before she can swing the shovel down. Jo raises an eyebrow. She watches as Anna lifts her other hand, and makes a slow, swooping gesture. A great mass of earth rises into the air under Anna's direction, separating from the ground around it and falling only once it's clear of the grave.

Jo stares for a moment. "Okay," she says, "so that was cool."

Anna gives her a smile that's too soft, too warm, too intimate, so Jo makes a face. "And you didn't stop me from lugging this shovel all the way out here? You dick!"

Anna laughs her gorgeous, perfect, angelic laugh. Her eyes sparkle with the stars above them. Her teeth are white in the darkness. Jo finds herself smiling—and then Anna's laughter cuts off sharply.

"Anna?"

"I—" Anna starts, but seems to have trouble finishing the sentence. Her body has gone rigid. Her hands twitch.

"Anna?!" Panic climbs into Jo's throat, makes her voice thin. "Anna, what...?" She steps closer, puts a hand on Anna's arm. She's hot to the touch. Too hot. "Hey!" Jo shouts. "Anna, come on! You're an angel, damn it, a stupid ghost can't do this to you!"

But apparently, it can.

Anna's trembling, breathing fast and hard. Her deep, knowing eyes are round and panicked.

"Damn it," Jo hisses. "Fuck."

Her hands shake as she digs her lighter from her pocket and picks up the salt from where Anna had set it on the ground. "All right, you sick creep," she says to Arthur's bones, "it's time for a barbecue." She shakes out a healthy serving of salt, flicks open her lighter—and is sent sprawling to the side by the shuddery form of a ghost. Her flashlight goes scattering across the ground. "Shit," she mumbles.

Anna seems to have collapsed, so no help there. God, is she gonna die? Right here, in a dirty old graveyard? No,  _no_ , that's not how she wants to go, she can't die, she hasn't told Anna she loves her and she hasn't stopped this ghost and—and—oh, god, why is it so hard to breathe? She's never felt this panicky before. Like she can't breathe, can't think, can't move, can't breathe, can't breathe—

She can feel and hear her heart beating way too fast, a furious, ferocious rhythm pounding in her neck and thudding in her ears.

She feels weak, feels dizzy; her leg cramps up, and she cries out.

Is this how that kid felt? Thirteen year old Arthur Moore, in that empty building with those drugs?

Jo grits her teeth, clawing at the ground until she can tell which way is up and which way is down. She is  _not_ gonna go out this way. And neither is Anna. All she's gotta do is get her lighter on and down into that grave without homicidal Arthur getting to her first. Yeah. Okay.

Where is Arthur? Her lighter is there, she can just make it out in the darkness. She's still close to the grave.

"Hey, kid!" she manages to yell. Her head feels light. She hopes she doesn't pass out before she can get the job done. Oh, god, if she passes out she'll never wake up again, it'll all be over, she'll—" _Stop_ it, Jo," she hisses to herself. She grabs at the ground, drags herself a foot closer to the lighter. It's almost in reach now. She reaches out, stretches, stretches—there. Got it.

For a half second, she considers trying to sit up, but discards the idea almost immediately. Uprightness is too much to aim for.

She has her lighter, and the grave is within throwing distance if she throws as hard as she can; but of course it couldn't be that easy. Suddenly, Arthur is standing right in front of her, his ghostly feet by her nose. She takes a few gaspy breaths, lighter clutched tight in her hand.  _Stall_ , she thinks. When you're totally, completely screwed, you stall.

"Why'd—why did you kill those people?" she forces out. Since when is talking such a chore? "Huh?"

The kid looks down at her with sad, sad eyes. He's not the one freakin' dying. He's got no right to look so sad. Jo'd tell him as much, but she's a little busy praying her heart won't race right out of her chest.

"They wanted to follow me," he says. His voice is grainy and thin, young and sad.

"What do you—mean?" Jo manages.

"They wanted to follow me," the boy says again. "They wanted to follow me, so I showed them what would happen if they did."

It takes Jo a few long moments to process his words. It's not her fault, okay. He's got her doped up on some sort of ghostly drug overdose. "They—they were gonna do drugs?" she asks. "Seriously? You warned them about the dangers of drugs by  _killing_ them? That's—that's  _ridiculous_." She's wheezing by the end of it, but she can still feel her lighter in her hand, and if she only focuses on that, the panic can't overtake her. She's gonna be okay. She's gonna be okay. She's just gotta throw it. Light it and throw it. Easy. Sure.

Or... or not?

Arthur's eyes go wide; his mouth opens; crackling fire overtakes his body, swallowing him whole. Behind him, his open grave flickers with flame.

Jo frowns. All the unpleasant sensations are gone: the faintness, the muscle cramps, the panic, the racing of her heart.

"Uh," she says. "What the hell is going on?"

And then there's an angel standing over her. No, she's not being sappy—there's a literal, real-life angel standing over her, smiling, holding out a hand. Still struggling to catch up, Jo takes the offered hand and allows herself to be pulled to her feet.

"What... uh. What happened, exactly?"

The warmth of Anna's smile makes something flutter in Jo's stomach. "The ghost touched me from behind," Anna says. "He was stronger than I expected, but not a problem. I knew if I pretended to be affected, he'd move on, and I'd have a chance to light the bones."

Jo stares at her for a moment. Then she blurts: "Are you kidding me?"

Anna blinks.

"Are you freaking kidding me?"

"Jo, I—"

"So there I was, thinking that I was gonna die without even telling you that I fucking  _love_ you, and you used me as a  _distraction_ so you could finish the job? Are you  _kidding_ me?"

Anna blinks. Stares.

The words Jo just said out loud start to sink in, and Jo's face feels hot. "Um," she says.

"You love me?" Anna asks.

"Um," Jo says again. She shrugs. Smiles, sheepish. "I guess?"

Anna stares at her some more, unreadable face lit in warm tones by the fire that still swirls up from Arthur's grave. Jo shifts her weight from foot to foot, rubbing uncomfortably at her arm.

"But it's not—I mean, I didn't tell you because I wanted anything, I don't expect you to feel the same way, I just—"

"I do, though."

Jo stops, mouth still open. "Sorry, what?"

"I do. Feel the same way."

"Um," Jo says a third time. "Okay, well that's, that's..." Jo makes a face, shakes her head. "Why? I'm not—I'm not  _special_ , or, or interesting, or—Anna, I'm the freak who's more into knives than sex! I'm not even that good at hunting, okay. I woulda died out here if you weren't with me."

Anna shrugs. "But I was. I wouldn't let you die, Jo."

Jo opens her mouth helplessly, but can't find any words.

Anna takes a step closer to her. "Jo," she says, "I love you. I love you for yelling at me for using you as a distraction. I love you for spending your life protecting everyone else. I love you for your bravery and your strength, and I wish you'd let me see your fears, too." She pauses, smiles a bemused little smile. "Is that enough reason?"

Jo's throat feels tight, but she manages to chuckle. "Yeah. But don't you ever get that sappy on me again, okay?"

Another smile. Jo's heart thuds in her chest.

"Okay," Anna whispers. Another step closer. Her hand rises to cup Jo's cheek; it's warm, and strong; Jo leans into the touch. "Is this...?" Anna asks, her voice barely above a breath. "Is kissing okay?"

Jo leans forward to press her mouth to Anna's, for one second, two, three. She smiles when she pulls back. "Kissing is good," she whispers. The smile drops. "It's just... I'm not into the whole... sex... thing. Is that... gonna be okay? I mean, I know it's part of why you fell, and—"

Anna kisses her again, gentle and light. Her eyes actually fucking twinkle, which is not fair. God, Jo loves her.

"It's fine, Jo. I've had sex." Another smile. It's not fair how much that smile messes with Jo's insides. "What I _haven't_ had is a relationship with Jo Harvelle. That sounds much better, anyway."

Jo rolls her eyes. "Dude, what did I  _just_ say about being sappy?"

"Sorry," Anna says, still smiling. She drops another quick kiss to Jo's lips before she backs away, retrieving the shovel and the salt. "I say we find a motel, shower, and watch crap TV until we fall asleep. You?"

Jo grins. "Yeah. I guess that sounds okay."

**Author's Note:**

> [on tumblr](http://jodyquills.tumblr.com/post/97361555549/anna-jo-ace-jo-4-5k-case-fic-undercover-at-a)


End file.
